Harry found her hiding in the shadows trying to disguise her frustration with a book, but she clearly wasn't reading it because she wasn't turning the pages.
"Hrm," he said, not being able to come up with anything to say. She was upset about Ron, and he wasn't sure he could properly comfort her about that.
She looked up and swallowed a few times before saying, "Oh. Harry."
"I know," he said, and sat down next to her, "but Ron's sti—" and then he stopped, the worst thing he could do right now is bring up Ron.
Hermione slammed her book shut, "I don't want to talk about Ron right now."
"I know. Sorry. I'm an idiot."
"I mean, what does he think he's doing with that? With that—" it was a rare occasion on which words failed her, but they did at this point.
"I know," Harry said again, "but he seems to like her, unfortunately."
Hermione sighed, and with the book on her lap flopped down. Her hair poofed up around her head as she did so and Harry worked hard to suppress a slight snicker at the amusing sight.
"Man," Harry muttered, "I keep messing up. I didn't want to remind you about that. I wanted to take your mind off of the whole situation, but I."
"It's okay," Hermione said from somewhere between forest of hair and cover of book.
"I know you have a thing for Ron," Harry said, "but there's nothing we can do right now about Lavendar except hope that eventually he'll come to his senses…"
Hermione sat upright.
"I said the wrong thing again," Harry frowned, "I should just shut up."
"Have a thing for Ron?" Hermione started.
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, but in rare form for the evening managed to stay quiet.
"You think I have a thing for Ron?" she asked.
"You don't?" he asked, "I mean, why else would you be so ticked off about…?"
"Because," Hermione explained, "Lavendar Brown annoys me. Won-won? Yuck! I can't stand her. I like Ron, but as a friend, he's more like a brother, I suppose, and if I had a brother who was dating someone that annoying I'd be ticked off too, wouldn't you?"
Harry nodded, "Well, yeah, she is…annoying, and she's always around; because she's always around Ron."
"Yeah," Hermione said, looking away, out of the window.
"Sorry," Harry said after a few moments of studying her profile.
"For what?" Hermione asked.
"Upsetting you," Harry said.
"You didn't," Hermione answered, standing up and leaning on the window frame, "I'm mostly ticked off at myself."
"For what?"
Hermione sighed, "because…well, because as annoying as Lavender is she makes Won-won happy, and I haven't…I haven't been able to ask out the person who I like and I found out today that he doesn't realize that I even like him," she finished quickly.
"Oh," Harry said, crestfallen, "want me to…um...go turn him to stone?"
Hermione laughed and sighed at the same time, "Oh, just, go for it Granger," she muttered under her breath, "Harry," she said, turning to him and taking a step forward, "it's you."
"Oh," he said, cheeks flushing as red as hers, "Well, then…"
"We're a pair, aren't we?" she said.
"I thought you liked Ron," he said.
"We've been over that already," she said, touching his face and turning it more towards hers.
"I suppose we have," he said, whetting his lips.
She pressed her lips against his and he gave into the kiss.
"Finally," Ron muttered, walking past arm in arm with Lavender.